In 1836 a small association had been formed in London for advocating the repeal of the Corn Laws, and in 1838 a similar association was formed in Manchester.[637] At one of its earliest meetings appeared Richard Cobden, under whose guidance the association became the Anti-Corn Law League, and at whose invitation John Bright joined the League.  Under these two men the Anti-Corn Law League commenced its great agitation, its object being ’to convince the manufacturer that the Corn Laws were interfering with the growth of trade, to persuade the people that they were raising the price of food, to teach the agriculturist that they had not even the solitary merit of securing a fixed price for corn’.  The country was deluged with pamphlets, backed up by constant public meetings; and these efforts, aided by unfavourable seasons, convinced many of the errors of protection.  In 1840 the League spent L5,700 in distributing 160,000 circulars and 150,000 pamphlets, and in delivering 400 lectures to 800,000 people.  Bakers were persuaded to bake taxed and untaxed shilling loaves, and, on the purchaser choosing the larger, to demand the tax from the landlord; in 1843 the League collected L50,000, next year L100,000, and in 1845 L250,000 in support of their agitation.

Yet for some years they had little success in Parliament; even in 1842 Peel only amended the laws; and it was not until 1846 that, convinced by the League’s arguments, as he himself confessed, and stimulated by the famine in Ireland, he introduced the famous Act, 9 & 10 Vict. c. 22.

By this the maximum duty on imported wheat was at once to be reduced to 10s. a quarter when the price was under 48s., to 5s. on barley when the price was under 26s., and to 4s. on oats when the price was under 18s., with lower duties as prices rose above these figures, but the most important part of the Act was that on February 1, 1849, these duties were to cease, and only a nominal duty of 1s. a quarter on foreign corn be retained, which was abolished in 1860.

By 9 and 10 Vict. c. 23 the duties on live stock were also abolished entirely.  Down to 1842 the importation of horned cattle, sheep, hogs, and other animals used as food was strictly prohibited,[638] but in that year the prohibition was withdrawn and they were allowed to enter the country on a payment of 20s. a head on oxen and bulls, 15s. on cows, 3s. on sheep, 5s. on hogs; which duties continued till 1846.

It is interesting to find that so shrewd an observer as McCulloch did not expect any great increase in the imports of live animals from the reduction of the duties, but he anticipated a great increase in salted meat from abroad; cold storage being then undreamt of.